Corruption…A Little Help From Your Friends

Michael Hedges March 25, 2011 Follow on Twitter

Favors and frauds, pay-offs and propaganda all unfold in news broadcasts and headlines. Perhaps it’s the public or just editors most enamored with human failings. More complicated is when media itself is involved.

A murky story alleging government corruption at the highest levels is riveting the public in Ireland, dominating newscasts and headlines. Fourteen years ago a public tribunal was formed to investigate charges of corrupt practices against two prominent politicians. Its final report was issued this week (March 22). Caught up in the scandal is billionaire broadcaster Denis O’Brien.

A major part of the Moriarty Tribunal inquiry, officially The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Payments to Politicians and Related Matters, led by Justice Michael Moriarty), is the long questioned relationship between former Minister of Transport, Energy and Communications Michael Lowry and Mr. O’Brien.  In 1995 the Irish government awarded a new GSM mobile license to Esat Digifone, a consortium owned by Communicorp (40%), Telenor (40%) and other shareholders (20%). Communicorp is the broadcasting company owned by Mr. O’Brien. Telenor, now partially privatized, was the Norwegian State owned telecom monopoly. The “other” shareholders were essentially an investment fund managed by Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond.

The Moriarty Tribunal found that Mr. Lowry “secured the winning” of the mobile phone license for Esat Digifone. Payments made by Mr. O’Brien to Mr. Lowry, the Tribunal found, were “demonstrably referable to the acts and conduct of Mr Lowry in regard to the (licensing) process, that inured to the benefit of Mr. O’Brien’s winning consortium, Esat Digifone.”  Mr. O’Brien became a billionaire not long after Esat Digifone was sold to British Telecom (BT).

The tale is long, complicated and far from over. There appeared, the Tribunal charges, “a desire to obscure… a clear financial connection between Mr. Denis O’Brien and Mr. Michael Lowry.”  Irish Teoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny, barely three weeks in office, referred the Moriarty Tribunal report, all 2,400 pages, to the public prosecutor (March 23) to determine whether a criminal investigation is warranted.  The Tribunal granted all involved privilege against self-incrimination.

The journalist tribe, genetically predisposed to stalking the high, the mighty and the tempted, has long been attracted to tales of corruption and deceit. Within the tribe investigative journalists are the honored breed. It’s an opinion not universally shared by the rich and powerful.

“It's hard to do honest investigative journalism in Romania,” writes journalist Stefan Candea in the Spring 2011 edition of Nieman Reports. “After the collapse of Communism in 1989, a new elite emerged from the huge pool of former agents and informants of Securitate, the Communist secret service. Members of this heavily protected elite became judges and members of Parliament, prosecutors and business leaders, media owners and senior journalists.” Nieman Reports Spring 2011, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University focused on media, journalism and corruption.

The two-dozen articles relay the stories and perils of investigative journalists, almost entirely in the usually suspect regions: Eastern Europe, Africa, China and Latin America. The picture is chilling, heartbreaking and not at all surprising. The relationship between the powerful and the Fourth Estate is easily compromised.

“During the early years of Romania's transition from Communism to democracy, media owners were either well-connected business entrepreneurs or former journalists who had worked within the Communist propaganda machine,” continues Cadnea. “They transferred their competencies and the rules from their previous professions into these new ones. Of course, those skills had nothing to do with quality journalism or its foundational ethics. But when these reporters became financially successful (profiting through their unethical practices), they unfortunately became the models for generations of young journalists to follow.”

“Democracy—with its need for a fourth estate to fight corruption, hold government accountable, and educate its citizenry—is intrinsic to our journalism,” wrote former American journalist Drew Sullivan comparing the “western” journalistic ideal with his experience in the Balkans. “Those who are involved in journalism (in the Balkans) act as players in the political process. Most editors and publishers see themselves as serving the political establishment by hosting a dialogue with the political elite about what is best for the country. The idea of serving the public interest is a distant second since unfortunately the public really doesn't matter. Power resides solely (and those who hold it hope permanently) with the political elite so direct engagement with them is seen as the most effective media strategy to bring about change.”

“Hungarian investigative journalism has no veterans,” observes Hungarian journalist Tamás Bodoky. “In the past few years, the rightist media conglomerates have increased their power and influence—and so investigative journalism has focused, for the most part, on dubious activities involving leftist politicians who controlled the government until the spring of 2010. In fact, this circumstance played a major role in the conservative party's landslide victory in parliamentary and municipal elections.”

Increased political control over the media in Hungary has been widely reported, mostly outside Hungary. The consequences have included European Commission sanctions forcing the government to redress, slightly, politically inspired media laws. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban may have been momentarily embarrassed but time and the attention of outsiders moves on.

Western media critics continue to have a field day with stories of evil doing in places they only visit occasionally. Corrupt practices within their own ranks rarely attract editors interest unless, of course, an unpopular figure is attached. It’s called “picking low hanging fruit.”

German public broadcasters are embroiled in a fraud case involving children’s channel KiKa, a joint venture of ARD and ZDF. It seems a program producer, not named because of German privacy laws, skimmed some €8 million over several years by sending dodgy invoices. It also seems nobody – or everybody – knew about it at regional public broadcaster Mitteldeutschen Rundfunk (MDR), which has administrative responsibility for KiKa. Several public broadcasting officials have been implicated. MDR is leading an internal investigation, which some German media watchers view as “the fox guarding the hen-house.”

For more on the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and to read the Spring 2011 report use this link Nieman Foundation